26 comments:

There are still quite a few kinds of bogotry out there we as a society haven't gotten around to stigmatizing yet. It sucks out loud, but good on you for deciding to take charge of your own life and not be controlled by them.

And I _know_ insecure feelings don't just go away because some stranger on the internet complimented you, but you _are_ a beautiful woman. Whenever I see picture links on your posts, I get that delighted-giggly feeling like a kid in a candy store. ;)

Fret not Holly, not all of us are brain washed by society. You have a rapier wit, wonderful sense of humor and know exactly who you are. Frankly, looking at my dating past, the vast majority of the women I choose are built like you. Yes there was the 5'8" 112lb girlfriend who lost her charm and her soul to the cult of fashion, and one who out gained me in college and eventually could not borrow my 38" shorts anymore. But it has been, and always will be, for me, about humor, intellect and the inherent sexiness of being self-assured. Oh and pretty faces are a must. While I cannot attest to your face, too much is left unseen, I can say that I sure liked what I saw!

Love the statement "losing weight would be a change, not an obligation or a salvation." The notion that extra weight is a "character flaw" is my biggest peeve and almost gaurunteed to make me act innappropriately in public when someone makes a disparaging comment about anyone's weight.

I was always the fat kid growing up (I had piled 280lbs on a 5' frame by my freshman year and I kept going until I was over 400lbs by the time I was 21), so I'm torn on this issue. On the one hand, society's views of who's fat and what's beautiful are clearly at odds with my own (when I can see anyone's ribs I want to cook them a steak, not laud their beauty). On the other hand, there is definitely a problem with obesity in this country.

Ignoring for a moment the fact that many of the statistics quoted about obesity are based on the BMI (which is bogus), obesity and diabetes are among the top health concerns in America today. And that's really what the issue should boil down to: health, not appearance. People have different bodies, it's just that simple. Some people are designed to carry more weight than the government-sanctioned, recommended daily allowance or whatever. Those people will never weigh what they're being told they should and it's unhealthy for them to try.

I'm definitely against fat-hate...it doesn't help anyone, it just makes fat people miserable. But I'm not all gung-ho about fat acceptance either, and for much the same reason--it makes it easier for people with legitimate health concerns to put off addressing them. Problems arise, however, when labels like "fat" and "obese" are misapplied so much that it becomes hardwired into peoples' brains that if they have a baker's dozen vanity pounds, they're Jabba the Suburbanite.

I'm sorry to go on and on, but this is important to me and I don't want anyone to misunderstand me if I can avoid it. I think a certain amount of fat acceptance is a great thing because being obese is a constant struggle, and there is so much potential humiliation that an obese person faces on a daily basis that anything that mitigates it can't be bad. Besides, no one should be marginalized or treated as though they aren't a human being, no matter what they do or how much they weigh. I just think that healthy eating and exercise habits need to be continually reinforced in the interest of alleviating the health issues that arise from real obesity--as opposed to reinforcing the impossible beauty standards that currently exist.

However, if there's one thing I'm not torn on, it's the fact that you have a fantastic body.

Thanks for putting my own family's disfunction into perspective. Wow. I can't even imagine the hell you went through growing up.

My company has a daily status email, and they added a "health" section to it a few months ago. Of course 95% of the "health" blurbs are about how to eat fewer calories. It drives me up the freaking wall. Especially with advice like eating content-free chemical crap like Jello. I asked them if we really had to have it, and they said I didn't have to read the email. The email that tells me about all the upcoming client launches, who's in and out of the office, etc.

Brock F'in Samson - The thing is, the "obesity crisis" rhetoric is so overblown and shaming. It always has a tone of "we wouldn't all be suffering from this obesity epidemic if those fucking obese people hadn't got us into this shit!"

And the "health" stuff does get overplayed. Someone who is 400 pounds will often have more health problems than usual; being 200 pounds is very marginally possibly bad. (Even then.... I recently dealt with a person who weighed 490 pounds and had no health issues at all. He'd been injured in a freak, totally non-weight-related accident while working at his active physical job.)

And fuck, health problems aren't God's goddamn judgement. They're unpleasant and dangerous for the sufferer but they aren't proof that you've been naughty.

Finally, there's a lot of other unhealthy things in our society (particularly drinking; alcohol can destroy your body and life in ways that cheeseburgers can only dream of) that don't get this kind of tsking attention because at least they don't make you ugly.

Monique - Jello actually isn't nutritionally terrible, gelatin is a natural product and it's very high in protein. As a snack if you like jiggly wigglies, it's just fine for you! But as a guilt-trip "alternative" to the food you want to eat, fuck it. Jello's high in protein, not virtue.

My mom is sweet, but she yo-yo-dieted her way through my childhood and posted "reminders" to herself like "BETTER TO WASTE THAN TO WAIST" (yes, that food is not fuel for your body and brain; it's better in the trash! WTF?!) Of course they were all directed at herself and not me at all (just, on the front of the family fridge), so obviously I have no issues and my life is "Totally Awesome"...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFmVj5BXCxM

I didn't mean to come across as the health police (though it was easy to lose my meaning in that rambling, godawful post I made). If a person is happy with their weight, fuck it, that's all that matters--so long as they accept the potential health risks inherent in that choice. And you're right when you say that the "health crisis" scare tactics as presented in the media are shaming (the worst is the faceless, jiggling bellies and asses, as though they're saying, "Can you believe these people even leave the house? Shouldn't they just be shut away in a basement somewhere?"). When I said that healthy eating and exercise habits should be reinforced, that nonsense isn't what I was talking about.

However, I disagree that the health stuff gets overplayed. My dad weighed over 350lbs for most of his life with no health problems, it's true. But when they hit him, they hit him fast and he was dead within three years. I had no outward health problems at my heaviest, but I still felt a lot better physically and mentally after losing the weight. Will there be exceptions to this anecdotal evidence of mine? Of course...the dietetics industry deals in generalizations and they aren't perfect.

For example, I will never be healthy weighing less than 200lbs (I've been told by my doctor). But the FDA says I should weigh between 160 and 196 pounds. One of them (the FDA or my doctor) is wrong, but if I'm somewhere around 200lbs it probably won't ever matter (as you've said).

What I'm trying to get at (now that I've written another novella here...sorry) is that if people are eating lots of fruits and vegetables, drinking plenty of water, and getting at least an hour or so of physical activity per day (the healthy behaviors that I was talking about reinforcing earlier), and they still don't weigh what the government or the media says they should...who cares? Whatever weight they are is probably a healthy one for them.

The stuff your mother did/does is just wrong. I've had some 'mommy issues' of my own, but nothing near that.

I look at your pictures and I see a women I'd be happy to have. There is nothing 'wrong' with your body, in my mind. You have about the exact body type of my last serious girlfriend who I thought looked great. You are an attracibe woman, and on top of that from what I get via your blog you'vealso got a kick ass personality.

In short, Holly wins! (what you can do with the nipples doesn't hurt, either :-) )

I'm from eastern europe, and all the students I've met, who had made a trip to America (for summer work) had mentioned the obese people they saw, so there IS something strage going on there (and no, we aren't malnourished these days), in a way that already must influence the health of those people, too.

BUT.

I think, that there are a lot of factors that cause that, and NOT in a personal level, like the responsability of the food industry... I have other ideeas, too, but it would look stupid to play the americanologist from here.

What I'm trying to say, that permitting all the conditions to change for the worse and then blame it on the peole is just like that simplistic and STUPID theory about the crisis that blames it all to those "irresposible" people who got in debt, without looking at the conditions they were living in.

But it's much more acceptable for them to blame the people, than to try and attack those companies.

so the reply to fat-heaters would be, that you want us healthier? Go fight for better regulations, more paid vacations (stress is unhealthy) and so on.

Besides the fact that, oh god, our moms must be twins, or something...

I'd totally rec watching a movie called Fat Head (http://fathead-movie.com). I liked that one guy there who made a rather interesting comparison of fat hate with racial hate. His arguments definitely made me think... either he's right or we as humans just have to hate something. Either way, it's still WRONG.

The thing about the "do it for your health" people is not that they're wrong, Anonymous. It's that they pretend to care about your health because they don't have the guts to admit that they think you should lose weight in order to be more attractive for them to look at.

I'm losing weight right now, and I am doing it partly for health reasons. But I don't give the time of day to people who pretend to be concerned about my health so they can work in an insult about the way I look without having to answer questions about why it's any of their business. The ubiquity of the practice has actually led to a backlash, with a lot of fatties now simply declaring that they "like being unhealthy, dammit, so leave me alone."

I hope I didn't come across as one of those people--if I did, my communication skills are lacking because that's not me. My undergrad degree is in nutrition (I left the field before becoming a registered dietitian) and I really am just concerned about the health aspects; I think people of all shapes and sizes are beautiful (if they aren't jerks or something). Again, point taken that a person's health is their own business--I only want to advocate the availability of good information and nutritious food so that people can make informed decisions about what they eat and how to reach and maintain a healthy weight if they're interested.

A couple of months ago I weighed 178 lbs and was listless and easily out of breath. Now, having increased my exercise a lot (I need to take my brown belt test soon, and it's demanding) I have way more energy and stamina. And I weigh 178 lbs.

Focusing on weight as the outcome would make those months of work look like a failure; but for physical performance, and I am sure for health as well, they were a success. Weight is a crappy metric for health.

We're struggling with this with our adopted son, who came to us in the 5th percentile of height and weight for his age -- malnutrition -- but who still got all "I'm getting fat, oh no!" as soon as he was more than skin over bones. Luckily his pediatrician is very level-headed.

The other thing I want to say is, in some cases at least overeating can be a response to malnutrition. I went about 5 weeks with not enough veggies -- we were under family and financial stress, and my son doesn't like veggies much -- and I found myself eating more and more, because I had a strong sense of deprivation.

If, instead of lecturing people on calories and fat, we taught them how to choose a good range of healthy foods, they might or might not lose weight -- I suspect many would -- and we would not harm anyone, which is a worthy goal.

Fat-haters obviously find overweight people unattractive, but more than that, they're terrified of becoming fat themselves. Therefore, they absolutely CANNOT afford to realize that one's body type has as much to do with luck as it does with good habits.

Better to believe that extra weight is always, ALWAYS caused by a crappy lifestyle and that as long as they keep exercising and eating well they'll stay at a socially acceptable weight forever.

You'd think the fat-hate thing is a huge pet peeve for me because I have weight issues myself, but actually it's the opposite. When I was younger I ate like crap and nobody ever chastised me about my health. Not even once. Why not? I'm assuming my fast metabolism and freakish, undeserved six-pack abs threw 'em off the trail.

So for years and years I felt like total shit and was probably malnourished, but beacuse I'd felt that way for so LONG, I didn't realize anything was amiss. And I know I brought that on myself by eating cookie dough and/or bacon for every meal, but I was young and dumb and could really have used some guidance. It would've been nice if people who saw my eating habits had gasped in horror and told me to STOP instead of chuckling and going "Wow, you sure do love bacon" like my 6,000 calorie a day diet was this endearing, harmless quirk.

what, "financial stress causin' malnutrition"? And, if we're already speaking about it, financial strss caused by the state of the economy and the way the sistem works and and and... instead of people's own mistakes? What an incredible and inimagible idea for fat-haters.

I feel you on the mommy issues, Holly. My mom's not quite as ... overt as yours, but I tend to avoid eating around her regardless. Plus she's really fat herself and she tends to phrase her fat-hate barbs in "do you WANT to turn out like me?" ways, which makes it all the more fucked up

This is a bit off topic, but I was rather struck, and wanted to comment. Thank you for posting that first photo. I'm somewhere around your level of fatness, and it was a something of a revelation to see the picture and go, "wow, she has an interesting body! :)" Sometimes, when I see pictures of women who have fat, I think things like "well, she's pretty _anyway_" or "well, I have nice legs, so I'm not as bad", both of which are shitty things. But I saw your picture, and my brain went "that looks like fun!"(I'm a straight women, so it's more of an abstract thought that that looks like fun then thoughts about sex). It was personal proof that someone doesn't have to look like a super-smoking celebrity to have a body that someone else wants to experience. That mean --- *gasp* --- that someone might feel that way about me, legitimately, not just looking past my weight because they care about me.

So, thank you for sharing, and I for one think you have an awesome body.

3. I really hope you were joking with the "being fat is marginally more healthy than being anorexic" thing. Anorexia has, what, 30% mortality over 20 years? It's fucking absurd. Being fat is WAY healthier than that.

OMG I can do the nipples thing too! I have to hold my boob up to my face to do it but I can suck them and I had one of the best orgasms I've ever had while adding that to my usual genital stimulation during masturbation... it's such a fun thing to be able to do :D